Been listening to Question Time & the media obsession with 'banker's bonuses' (what ever a banker means).

I think it must just be me but I don't really care what other people earn, it doesn't effect what I earn. If they don't have it I'm not going to get any of it. They will be paying tax on it & since they are already on higher rate then the exchequer gets half of it back anyway.

Except many of them don't pay their fair share of tax by exploiting loopholes. And I think people have a right to be outraged when bosses of state-owned banks earn millions in bonuses after having their arses bailed out by the tax payer. You could lazily dismiss it as envy but the bankers don't make it any easier for themselves.

Like I said, maybe its only me, but I simple don't give a monkeys what other people earn. It doesn't effect you or me or anyone what these 'bankers' earn.

If the guy does or doesn't get his £800K bonus how does it actually change anybody's life except for the recipient. In fact, the county's coffers will increase from the tax being paid which would be greater than the Corporation Tax that would have been paid instead, unless it is a loss making bank, in which case the country benefits even more..

Except many of them don't pay their fair share of tax by exploiting loopholes. And I think people have a right to be outraged when bosses of state-owned banks earn millions in bonuses after having their arses bailed out by the tax payer. You could lazily dismiss it as envy but the bankers don't make it any easier for themselves.

Considering your money helped pay for these bonuses when it could have gone on healthcare, protecting the country, helping those in need, then you should really care, unfortuanetly your apathy is pretty much the way most people act.

Been listening to Question Time & the media obsession with 'banker's bonuses' (what ever a banker means).

I think it must just be me but I don't really care what other people earn, it doesn't effect what I earn. If they don't have it I'm not going to get any of it. They will be paying tax on it & since they are already on higher rate then the exchequer gets half of it back anyway.

Good luck to them I wish it was me.

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I think that it is more about the economic ruling class taking unfair advantage of the rest of us.

Should we care about their bonuses? Yes is the resounding answer to that question.

Been listening to Question Time & the media obsession with 'banker's bonuses' (what ever a banker means).

I think it must just be me but I don't really care what other people earn, it doesn't effect what I earn. If they don't have it I'm not going to get any of it. They will be paying tax on it & since they are already on higher rate then the exchequer gets half of it back anyway.

Good luck to them I wish it was me.

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Good on you. As long as all the money was obtained legally I don't think people should really be too concerned with what others make. The 'pay their fair share' argument is a relative one and I never like it. What one persons opinion of fair share will be much different than another. They should pay what the law requires, nothing more.

As one respondent to the question said rather well, we saved the bank so it could return to health and be commercially viable, and to be commercially viable it must operate under the rules and norms of the world it is living in.

Well, while the employees were getting huge bonuses, the companies were hemorrhaging money and sinking the economy. Then, once they were propped up by the citizens(who gained little benefit from the bailout), they got more bonuses despite not deserving them. Also, because of the short-term focus of many banks, employees rolled in money while creating the mortgage crisis, that they never had to pay for. Hell, lots of Wall Street guys don't think they owe the public anything for saving their asses.

Also, executive pay rises no matter what they do because of peer-based pay. If RBS is paying their executives £20m per year, then HSBC has to pay theirs £20m to keep up. As does Northern Rock.

And the bonuses often come at the expense of other workers. A CEO, and other executives, getting a $10m bonus after laying off 1000 workers is pretty ridiculous.

Who says they don't deserve them? They are in the process of saving one of the lynchpins of the British economy which continues to live to fight another day in a time of severe turbulence and instability in global economics - transitioning such a troubled bank in such circumstances I'd say is deserving of a bonus myself, people are so poor it would seem at looking at the wider picture.

The problem is the people must have their scapegoats, if you listen to sentiment in the UK right now then nobody outside of the banks did any wrong which is an absolute fallacy. To fall foul of such a crisis as we have institutions across the length and width of society must fail and fail badly which is what happened but it is convenient to avoid blaming themselves and to find an easy and weakened target in whom to place their frustration.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, that is not the point and you don't get it. Whilst I am unsure what the point is or what "it" is myself, I am certain that isn't it, that you don't get it, and will certainly not sit around and watch.

So, they deserve to make huge bonuses for screwing up the economy? Sure, while they keep their well paying jobs, big houses, etc, the average person is put under far more strain than they are. Because of dim-witted and unscrupulous management, the mortgage crisis happened. Why the hell should they get paid bonuses for that? In pursuit of short-term profits, they created junk debt, which was wrongly rated by all the ratings agencies because they're corrupt and wanted to please the banks, that they could then bet against knowing that they were likely to fail. People over-borrowed, but banks have a responsibility(to themselves at least) to say no when it is unfeasible to offer a loan with reasonable expectation of repayment.

If they are working to build a more stable, prudent system, they deserve the bonuses as long as their companies are performing well and the people aren't expected to socialize their losses. More likely, they intend to just continue the high risk short game that the US and British banks seem to favor that is dependent on bubbles and busts. Until the bank repays its debts to the government, with interest, no one should receive bonuses. Once it's back on its own, it can do whatever it pleases but shouldn't expect the people to save them again.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, that is not the point and you don't get it. Whilst I am unsure what the point is or what "it" is myself, I am certain that isn't it, that you don't get it, and will certainly not sit around and watch.

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On the contrary dear boy, I know enough not to jump on a bandwagon because everybody else is doing so. It might be fashionable to 'bash a banker' with any means that you can but it doesn't make it right, especially so on bonuses.

As one respondent to the question said rather well, we saved the bank so it could return to health and be commercially viable, and to be commercially viable it must operate under the rules and norms of the world it is living in.

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Wasn't he the one that tried to use United as an analogy to it? Sounded like a massive pile of bilge to me.

Brian you seem to have agreed with something Colin hasn't said. He says he doesn't care what other people get paid. I'm afraid if we go down that route we may as well say "I don't care about politics", let someone else deal with it. I would rather talk about bonuses than many things, if it doesn't interest you move on.

Sadly Brian is right, we do live in a world where doing a good job as the head of a major company gives you multi million pounds of bonuses. I don't like it but we do. If we took it away, we make ourselves less attractive, and that may or may not have an effect. Personally I think its a load of shite, I think everyone knows its a load of shite, I think there are many qualified people who could do his job, and would do it for less money. But what do I know?

This has nothing to do with envy, possibly it has much to do with greed. I'm not envious of a man with multimillions of pounds, I can't fecking imagine it. I don't lie awake at night dreaming of being handed 1.6 million pounds for doing a years work, I lie awake at night wishing for much simpler things. And yet I can have a rational conversation about how heads of companies shouldnt get paid that much money.

The problem is that some people talk shit, others talk more shit, everyone thinks the people talking shit are intelligent, the people with money like to keep it that way, the system collapses and no one with any actual, tangible, real, proper, metaphysical intelligence will eve get listened too.

On the contrary dear boy, I know enough not to jump on a bandwagon because everybody else is doing so. It might be fashionable to 'bash a banker' with any means that you can but it doesn't make it right, especially so on bonuses.

So, they deserve to make huge bonuses for screwing up the economy? Sure, while they keep their well paying jobs, big houses, etc, the average person is put under far more strain than they are. Because of dim-witted and unscrupulous management, the mortgage crisis happened. Why the hell should they get paid bonuses for that? In pursuit of short-term profits, they created junk debt, which was wrongly rated by all the ratings agencies because they're corrupt and wanted to please the banks, that they could then bet against knowing that they were likely to fail. People over-borrowed, but banks have a responsibility(to themselves at least) to say no when it is unfeasible to offer a loan with reasonable expectation of repayment.

If they are working to build a more stable, prudent system, they deserve the bonuses as long as their companies are performing well and the people aren't expected to socialize their losses. More likely, they intend to just continue the high risk short game that the US and British banks seem to favor that is dependent on bubbles and busts. Until the bank repays its debts to the government, with interest, no one should receive bonuses. Once it's back on its own, it can do whatever it pleases but shouldn't expect the people to save them again.

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As I say, pure populism.

They were part of the problem but so was everybody else, so was all of the people that the banks were lending to, so were the people who took on too much debt, in the case of the US so were the people who built too many houses, so were the public services that were run so inefficiently, so were governments running up national debts, so were regulators who were not regulating.

Yet the public isn't demonising everybody, it is demonising the bankers who leant the money to other people who spent it badly but not they themselves, many of the people complaining are those who took on such lending when they couldn't afford it.

The simple fact of the matter is we want to return the Royal Bank of Scotland to good health and to a solid business plan, the quickest and most assured way of doing this is to allow the bank to operate in the norms of the UK financial sector. How exactly does seeking retribution help us? If the UK taxpayer wants their money back then they should be encouraging RBS to act in a commercial manner and compete with their private competitors on an equal footing as opposed to having an arm tied behind it's back.

Brian you seem to have agreed with something Colin hasn't said. He says he doesn't care what other people get paid. I'm afraid if we go down that route we may as well say "I don't care about politics", let someone else deal with it. I would rather talk about bonuses than many things, if it doesn't interest you move on.

Sadly Brian is right, we do live in a world where doing a good job as the head of a major company gives you multi million pounds of bonuses. I don't like it but we do. If we took it away, we make ourselves less attractive, and that may or may not have an effect. Personally I think its a load of shite, I think everyone knows its a load of shite, I think there are many qualified people who could do his job, and would do it for less money. But what do I know?

This has nothing to do with envy, possibly it has much to do with greed. I'm not envious of a man with multimillions of pounds, I can't fecking imagine it. I don't lie awake at night dreaming of being handed 1.6 million pounds for doing a years work, I lie awake at night wishing for much simpler things. And yet I can have a rational conversation about how heads of companies shouldnt get paid that much money.

The problem is that some people talk shit, others talk more shit, everyone thinks the people talking shit are intelligent, the people with money like to keep it that way, the system collapses and no one with any actual, tangible, real, proper, metaphysical intelligence will eve get listened too.

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On the bolded part first I agree with his overriding sentiment, that this furore that has been whipped up surrounding bonuses is wrong as opposed to the particular reasons for such.

I think you are doing Hester a big disservice here, RBS has nearly 150,000 employees, it has a balance sheet worth £1.5 trillion and it is in transition following a deeply flawed business plan, in a perilous time on the world stage economically. If you think that is a job that lots and lots of people are capable of handling then you ought to think again, this man is responsible for more money than the British economy turns over in a year.

I have no problem whatsoever with how much people are paid, if the last Government saw fit to pay him £1.1 million then good luck to him. Personally I think a man who has the fate of one of the biggest banks in the world on his shoulders and by extension British economic vitality for a generation is worth every penny of that salary.

Don't worry, your response "didn't get" my point, which is ironic as that was my point. One side says that we're only discussing all this because of envy, that banks and big companies pay big bonuses to stay competitive, and that they are unfairly villainized.

Whilst the other side says that is not the point. We don't bring the money up because we are envious or jealous. The bankers may be villainized by the media, but so are a lot of people, who aren't making millions of pounds of bonuses. The whole world might operate in that way. That is not the point. The point is, something else.

Don't worry, your response "didn't get" my point, which is ironic as that was my point. One side says that we're only discussing all this because of envy, that banks and big companies pay big bonuses to stay competitive, and that they are unfairly villainized.

Whilst the other side says that is not the point. We don't bring the money up because we are envious or jealous. The bankers may be villainized by the media, but so are a lot of people, who aren't making millions of pounds of bonuses. The whole world might operate in that way. That is not the point. The point is, something else.

I think you are doing Hester a big disservice here, RBS has nearly 150,000 employees, it has a balance sheet worth £1.5 trillion and it is in transition following a deeply flawed business plan, in a perilous time on the world stage economically. If you think that is a job that lots and lots of people are capable of handling then you ought to think again, this man is responsible for more money than the British economy turns over in a year

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He has done a fabulous job since coming out to talk about it I'll say that for him. Since publicly saying he nearly walked away from his job because of the bonuses, and for agreeing to waive his bonus he has given voice to the people behind the word.

No way, too tired, not articulate or intelligent enough these days. To have this kind of argument you need to do it every day, all the time, and I haven't been for a long while.

But when you have a world-wide problem like the bonus culture, but you can't put a stop to it because of fear of them moving elsewhere (the CEO's, etc) then you have to deal with it on a globalscale. It's the exact same problem over and over again. The highly paid cannot be taxed more because they would simply move elsewhere, but no one is willing to put pressure on those other places to raise their tax levels. No one can limit bonuses because the heads of companies and "intelligent bankers" (for lack of a better term) will move elsewhere. So solve the problem elsewhere.

Who was the poster on here that said that the same amount of money would be gained by the inland revenue by having a flat tax of 5% (he guessed) across the whole of the UK pay spectrum. He got annoyed because I said it was totally immoral.

Whether or not there is any truth in it, its the same point. If it was possible to solve certain problems by giving in to the super rich and letting them pay next to no tax, or letting them receive massive bonuses, then what you have done is not solve anything at all. All you have done is let certain people have everything their way and destroy the groundwork elsewhere. We can let RBS pay their staff whatever they want, and then nothing will get solved, no legislation will be written, no precedent will be set. Or we could, systemically change the way this country, and the global economy is run from the ground up.

Who was the poster on here that said that the same amount of money would be gained by the inland revenue by having a flat tax of 5% (he guessed) across the whole of the UK pay spectrum. He got annoyed because I said it was totally immoral.

Whether or not there is any truth in it, its the same point. If it was possible to solve certain problems by giving in to the super rich and letting them pay next to no tax, or letting them receive massive bonuses, then what you have done is not solve anything at all. All you have done is let certain people have everything their way and destroy the groundwork elsewhere. We can let RBS pay their staff whatever they want, and then nothing will get solved, no legislation will be written, no precedent will be set. Or we could, systemically change the way this country, and the global economy is run from the ground up.

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Nothing will change. Majority of the population in the west or I should say vast majority of people who matter in the west are comfortable with current status quo and do not want to risk forgoing the living standard prevailing there. So there is no way they will allow anything radical to happen which may and has potential to affect them negatively. It is simply unsustainable though and something will have to give sooner or later.

They were part of the problem but so was everybody else, so was all of the people that the banks were lending to, so were the people who took on too much debt, in the case of the US so were the people who built too many houses, so were the public services that were run so inefficiently, so were governments running up national debts, so were regulators who were not regulating.

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Bull shit. The banks only form and function is to lend money, thats how they make profit, and they fecked up because they lost interest in how it was spent. They just wanted to lend more and more so it could be securitised and flogged off, the financial crises is their fault and theirs alone.

As one respondent to the question said rather well, we saved the bank so it could return to health and be commercially viable, and to be commercially viable it must operate under the rules and norms of the world it is living in.

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Is it not? I'll admit that calls to scrap all forms of bonuses, to aim all kind of restrictions and recriminations against the banking sector are. But your statement seems to include all the reasonable protests against bonuses as well.

Both pre and post crash we have had people being paid bonuses despite missing targets or reporting poor performances (and not just as a result of market conditions). When scores of people are losing their jobs, despite being perfectly good at them in many cases, it is completely understandable that this provokes extreme frustration. You're right to say that bonuses have to reflect the market to some extent, and therefore we can't eradicate them without inflicting severe damage to our financial services economy.

But I think you're doing a huge disservice to many people by writing them off as victims of 'populism' when they point out the flaws in the bonus system. Poor performance shouldn't be rewarded (as your Party agrees) and bonuses paid should be reflective of the work done. People are going to be particularly annoyed by this when it's public money paying to facilitate this.

The simple fact of the matter is we want to return the Royal Bank of Scotland to good health and to a solid business plan, the quickest and most assured way of doing this is to allow the bank to operate in the norms of the UK financial sector. How exactly does seeking retribution help us? If the UK taxpayer wants their money back then they should be encouraging RBS to act in a commercial manner and compete with their private competitors on an equal footing as opposed to having an arm tied behind it's back.

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You are stating this like it's some kind of self-evident truism. The bank was 'operating within the norms of the UK financial sector' when it all went tits up. What has changed to make you think operating within those same norms is going to be beneficial now?

Like I said, maybe its only me, but I simple don't give a monkeys what other people earn. It doesn't effect you or me or anyone what these 'bankers' earn.

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This is clearly incorrect. The fact banks offered large financial incentives to their employees encouraged excessive risk taking and prioritisation of short-term results over long-term stability. This was a major factor behind the crash, and has thus effected every single one of us.

You seem to be suggesting we each live in an isolated bubble, when in reality the economy is interconnected in many different ways.

Been listening to Question Time & the media obsession with 'banker's bonuses' (what ever a banker means).

I think it must just be me but I don't really care what other people earn, it doesn't effect what I earn. If they don't have it I'm not going to get any of it. They will be paying tax on it & since they are already on higher rate then the exchequer gets half of it back anyway.

Bull shit. The banks only form and function is to lend money, thats how they make profit, and they fecked up because they lost interest in how it was spent. They just wanted to lend more and more so it could be securitised and flogged off, the financial crises is their fault and theirs alone.

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Bullshit. They played a big role in it for sure, but so did Joe Public who borrowed beyond his means, the problem is he's not too keen on personal responsibility and the media love to pick on the big bad bankers so the public concentrate on blaming them entirely.

We're all shareholders in the two banks that recently announced their respective losses, our priority should be getting these banks to a state where the government can sell their shares off at a reasonable profit. I don't agree with this simplistic notion that because they are making losses they are failing, the PPI situation is a big factor in those losses and they are paying for the mistakes of the past.

The whole Hester situation was absurd; here's a guy who could name his price at many companies in the financial sector and yet the public were on the verge of hounding him out for the sake of a million or so? I've never seen anything so short-sighted; just think of the billions we stand to make if this guy is left to get on with the fine job he's doing and returns RBS to the market.

The RBS is over 80% owned by the taxpayer - the same public who are currently suffering under the most brutal austerity cuts the government have ever inflicted upon the UK which means hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs whilst cost of living - food, gas, petrol etc - rise year on year meaning many people are in fuel poverty and having to choose between eating and heating their homes.

Meanwhile, the RBS cuts many thousands of people's jobs every year forcing these people into unemployment amidst the austerity cuts and rising cost of living, continues to make losses, and pays their bankers - many of whom were responsible for the recession in the first place - millions and millions in bonuses, whilst giving nothing back to the taxpayer, making no more money, and cutting many jobs.

It's completely disgusting that bankers get any bonuses. None of them should get a penny until they've paid back what they owe to the suffering public who bailed them out of the gutter when they were up shit creek.

Even the ugly tory, hug a banker, cnuts on here should be interested in what is happening with the banks. That includes what they pay. This is about tax payers and the general public at large having a vested interest in what happens with the banks.

So Colin129 maybe you should care, or at least understand why others do. And those agreeing with him should do a little research or at least watch the news once in a while. Perhaps then they wouldn't come across as such say much but know little posters.

Ahh, the classic 'you disagree with me so you must be misinformed and uneducated' line, I haven't heard that one in a while.

In this case pragmatism trumps idealism, the most important thing here is to allow the management to get on with the job and bring RBS back to health without interference and attempted micro management by the media, that is the only way the taxpayer will ever see a return on the funds ploughed into it in the first place.

There's a bizarre idea that every banker is somehow intertwined with the company's performance as a whole. How exactly is an investment banker to blame for PPI?

If you started a job, and your employer said "if you increase sales in your sector by 50%, you will receive a bonus of £20k", then at the end of the year they said "well done for meeting your target, but as a company we've lost money, so you won't be getting your bonus", you wouldn't exactly sit there and accept it. You're contractually owed that money.